Web pages provide an inexpensive and convenient way to make information available to other individuals including, for example, consumers of products, students, and media enthusiasts. However, as the inclusion of multimedia content, embedded advertising, and online services becomes increasingly more prevalent in modern web pages, the web pages themselves have become substantially more complex. For example, in addition to their main content, many web pages display auxiliary content such as background imagery, advertisements, navigation menus, and links to additional content, among others.
It is often the case that web page owners, web page developers, or individuals that visit web pages wish to utilize only a portion of the information presented in a web page. Selection of desired content in web pages can eliminate extraneous or undesired content and significantly streamline a number of workflows. For instance, a user may desire to print a physical copy of an article located at an online news website without reproducing any of the other content on the web page containing the article, such as advertising, links to other content, etc. Similarly, an owner of a web page may wish to adapt a web page into another document, such as a marketing brochure, without including content from the web page that is superfluous to the new document. Additionally, a user may wish to display only the most relevant web content on a computing device that has a limited screen size such as a mobile smart phone. Other applications that may benefit from the selection of desired content in web pages include, for example, search, information retrieval, information management, archiving, and other applications.